Part 2: Favourite Gymnastics of 2013 ~ New Skills

Kenzo Shirai

The Shirai/Kim By Kezno Shirai & Kim Hee Hoon aka the triple twisting Yurchenko: Worth 6.0 in the MAG code. All I can say is that this vault is super duper hard. I honestly thought we would never see it this year but here it is done by Korea's Kim Hee Hoon.

The Shirai I & II: Bwd 4/1 Twists (F) & Fwd 3/1 Twists (F). Kenzo the twisting machine!

Yang Hak Seon doing the 5/2 Kas vault. Doing  a 2/1 Kas is already insane but Yang is badass and is trying to get the 5/2 name after him. I hope next year he will be more successful. Really, he is amazing.

Simone Biles

The Shang by Shang Chunsong: Cleap hip Piked Tkatchev (F). This is a cool skill. I can't believe this skill hasn't been named after someone from before. I don't know if Shang was the first to ever do this skill in WAG but she definitely deserved this skill name. I'm happy she got it named after her.

The Biles by Simone Biles: DLO with 1/2 turn (G). This skill is nice because at times the 1/2 turn catches me by surprise and it's super difficult to spot the landing. She's brave for doing it.

The Moors II by Victoria Moors: She broke the code! It's worth "I", "I"! This skill is even hard for guys to do. I can't snub out Skinner who actually does it well. She was the first one who got everyone talking about the 2/1 DLO.

What were your favourite new skills from this year?

New 2013 WAG Elements

The FIG has posted up the new WAG elements that were performed in Antwerp worlds championships. There were 7 new elements but only 4 gymnasts were given skills named after them because the difficulty was D or higher. Victoria Moors broke the code by adding a new letter to the code. The new letter difficulty is "I"!

Full List of New Skills

Names Given:

(UB) Shang Chunsong CHN - Clear hip circle to counter piked on HB (F)

(BB) Silvia Colussi Pelaez ESP - Aerial cartwheel in cross position (E)

(FX) Simone Biles USA - DLO with 1/2 turn (G)

(FX) Victoria Moors CAN - DLO 2/1 twists (I)

Not Given Name (because 4 gymnasts performed it)

(FX) Switch Ring Leap with 1/2 turn (D)

CoP - Tip of The Month

On uneven bars D+D both flight elements on the same bar can receive 0.2 connection value.

I was checking the CoP and it seems I can't find the D+D both flight element for 0.2. I know the code states D+D or more is 0.1 but those are for skills such as Stalder 1/1 + Tkatchev, inbar 1/2 + Jaeger etc.

The D+E both flight elements is in the code. Usually you'll see those skills be used as Piked Tkatchev + Pak or most recently Mustafina's Seitz + Pak.

D+D 0.2CV examples: Markelov + Gienger (e.g Tweddle) or Tkatchev + Gienger (e.g Shang)

WAG 2013 Worlds AA Results - Simone Biles USA Wins

AA Award Ceremony

  FULL RESULTS 

1. Simone Biles USA 60.216

Highlight for me would be her vault and floor. Her beam could be better. She got through bars and had the second highest E- score 8.600. Overall she did a very good job, well done.

2. Kyla Ross USA 59.332

She was my favourite today. Low difficulty but very good execution. It's proof that this strategy can work. It's sad because I could see Anastasia Grishina having this kind of strategy, come on Russia are you paying attention? It's sad the Russians insists Grishina do higher difficulty. Ross had the highest E-scores of the competition with the exception of FX (Biles was higher) VT9.566  UB8.700  BB8.633  FX8.633. She won the Longines elegance prize too :) Oh and Kohei won it again. Would have been better if someone else won it besides Kohei, maybe his teammate Kato should have won it.

3. Aliya Mustafina RUS 58.856

The Americans were too strong for Mustafina to challenge them but she put up a good fight. Her DTY is good but could be better. She brought back her full 6.7 bar routine. On floor she did good. She did two whips indirect to Arabian + stag, cool. I'm happy she got to medal.

Other highlights-

The Chinese failed on beam. Yao and Shang both fell off beam. Yao did the Mo Salto though!

Larisa Iordache started off good but then on her best event she fell off beam. She is my pick for BB EF gold. She came back on floor with a nice routine.

Grishina, Bulimar and Shang FX QF @ 2013 Anadia Cup

Yay videos are popping up at piibunina's channel. Here are videos from the qualification round. It's nice to see Grishina wearing the Olympic team finals leotard. It's a beautiful leotard in my opinion. I like Grishina's Memmel + Illusion combination. Too bad I will miss this competition tomorrow.

2013 FIG Anadia World Cup Nominative List

This FIG world cup event will take place in Anadia, Portugal on 21-23 of June. I believe it is only an event finals competition, no AA. The top countries like China, Romania and Russia are sending good gymnasts to this meet. The MAG list is great as well.

Nominative List

China is sending Shang Chunsong and Zeng Siqi. Shang will compete on UB, BB & FX. Zeng on BB & FX.

Romania is sending Larisa Iordache and Diana Bulimar. They will compete on all apparatuses.

Russia is sending the popular Anastasia Grishina (UB, BB, FX) along with new seniors, Ekaterina Baturina (BB, FX) and Alla Sosnitskaya (VT). 2nd year senior Anna Rodionova will be competing too.  It's interesting to note that Rodionova's best event is beam but she is planned to do VT and UB. Alla Sosnitskaya is good on floor exercise with potential. She apparently will only compete on vault.

Check out Alla Sosnitskaya's floor. It's a long video so I won't embed but I marked the link at 17:17 time.

Check out Anna Rodionova's beam from 2012. It's pretty impressive. She does flic flac to Arabian!

2013 Chinese National WAG Routines

This kind user bmbul is uploading videos to youtube. You can find all the results here

Huang Huidan UB EF Gold. D 6.6 + E 8.534 = 15.134. Wow I like her routine. She connected her pak to stalder shaposh 1/2. That's the same connection as Aliya Mustafina's 2012 UB gold medal routine.
Shang Chunsong BB EF Gold

Shang Chunsong 2013 Tokyo Cup Uneven Bars

Alright so I want to talk about Shang Chunsong. I don't know much about her but she debuted a new skill on WAG bars. She debuted a clear hip circle to pike. If she makes it to world's and successfully competes the skill, she will get it named after her. Shang's clear hip circle to pike has been given a well deserved "F" rating. This skill from Tkatchev variation is worth E and is named the Hindorff. Shang needs to work on her execution but I'm sure the Chinese coaches already know that. She catches her Hindorff pike very close to the bar and will get heavily deducted. I'm not sure if I like the composition of her routine but it is an ambitious routine. I see the Chinese are still doing the pirouette combos. Shang doesn't quite make her pirouettes look nice. The "Shang" has a nice ring to the clear hip pike. I hope she can get it named after her but to many gymnastics fan it is already dubbed the "Shang." I'm going to refer it as the Shang unless someone else can get it named after them.

Here is what she is going for:

Shang (F)
Pak (D)
Shaposh
Hindorff (E)
*Tkatchev + Gienger (D+D) 0.2CV
Healy + Ling (E+E) 0.1CV
Tsuk (D)

3.7 + 0.3CV = 4.0 + 2.5CR = 6.5 D-Score

* Shang's d-score was not published but she scored 13.400. I know that she fell and broke her connection but I gave her credit to show what her d-score would be like with the connection. Score Source Results